USA > New York > Livingston County > A history of Livingston County, New York : from its earliest traditions, to its part in the war for our Union : with an account of the Seneca nation of Indians, and biographical sketches of earliest settlers and prominent public men > Part 27
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In the same paper as the above, of date March 11, 1819, under the head of Assembly proceedings it is stated that "the bill to divide the towns of Livonia and Groveland, in the county of Ontario, was rejected in committee of the whole, for want of sufficient notice of the application."
Another notice in the same number of this pioneer journal serves to show where the early settlers found their most remunerative market. William H. Spen- cer announces that "any person living the west side the Genesee river, who contemplates sending pork, flour or ashes, to the Montreal market the present or ensuing season, can be accommodated with storage, and have their property forwarded if desired. Ware- house Point is about four miles below Moscow. The advantages of the place for storing property is, that it saves 12 or 15 miles boating, that would be required, was the landing to be at the Ferry-place, between Geneseo and Moscow."
A large share of the advertising patronage of this
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
paper was from those who offered "one cent reward and no charges paid," for runaway indentured appren- tices, and those who advertised thefts and trespasses on their wood lands.
In August, 1819, the Advertiser announced that a new post office had been established at York, and Moses Hayden, Esq., appointed postmaster. "This office is on the new mail-route from this village to Rochester."
At an early day the staple product of the Genesee valley was wheat, and the principal income was that derived from its sale for shipment to Baltimore or Montreal. In 1820 eight or ten boats were employed on the river in transporting the crops of the county purchased at Geneseo, Mount Morris and Canawaugus. A portion of the crops of the valley was sent to Ark- port, and thence in arks or flat boats to Baltimore, which afforded a good market. Produce intended for Montreal market was sent down the river to Rochester. The large farmers sometimes marketed their own wheat, a course not unattended with expense. One of them relates his experience thus : His wheat was ground at Wadsworth's mill, near Geneseo. He then drew it to Avon, paid storage there, paid freight down the river and storage above the falls at Rochester, freight to Carthage ( below Rochester ) and storage there, freight to Ogdensburgh and storage there, freight to Montreal and storage there, commission for selling, and "cooperage everywhere" on the line. After paying for a draft on New York he had eighteen pence per bushel left for his wheat, without counting the cost and labor of transportation to Wadsworth's mill, and thence to Avon bridge.
Such were some of the difficulties which the early settlers had to meet, but after years brought the canals, the network of railroads, and shipping facilities such
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
as these pioneers never imagined possible. Time has worked wonders, in no part of the country more than in this, and the busy, wealthy and prosperous county bears little resemblance to the sparsely settled and isolated Genesee country of fifty years ago.
CHAPTER XIII.
-
ERECTION OF THE COUNTY.
The county of Livingston* was erected from parts of the counties of Ontario and Genesee, by act of the legislature, on the 23d of February, 1821. It is divided into seventeen towns, Avon, Caledonia, Cone- sus, Geneseo, Groveland, Leicester, Lima, Livonia, Mount Morris, North Dansville, Nunda, Ossian, Por- tage, Sparta, Springwater, West Sparta, and York.
It is situated between the parallels of 42° 33' and 43° 0' north latitude ; and 0' 37' and 1° 8' of longitude west of Washington. Geneseo, its capitol town, located near the center, is two hundred and ten miles in a direct line west of Albany, and sixty-one miles east of Buffalo, twenty-eight miles south of Rochester, and sixty-three miles north of the Pennsylvania bor- der. It is the third county in the middle range east of Lake Erie. Its extreme length from north to south is thirty-seven miles ; and its greatest width east and west is thirty miles. It is bounded on the north by
* There are six counties in the United States bearing the name of Living- ston, namely : I, That in the State of New York to which this history relates ; II, a parish in S. E. Louisiana; III, a Co. in western Kentucky, organized in 1798; IV, a S. E. Co. of Michigan; V, a N. E. Co. of Illinois; VI, a N. W. Co. of Missouri.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
the county of Monroe, on the east by Ontario and Steuben, on the south by Steuben and Allegany, and on the west by Genesee and Wyoming. Its general form is that of an imperfect square. Its area is 655 square miles, or 419,200 acres. Its population at the census of 1875 was 38,564 ; when organized in 1821 it had a population of about 19,800 souls. Its greatest population, according to the census, was in 1840, at which time, by including the town of Ossian, since then annexed, it numbered 43,436 inhabitants. As in most rural districts in the State, so here, there is a constant tendency among its people to emigrate to the west, or to concentrate in the great cities, the former being more particularly true of this county.
When erected, the county contained twelve towns. Of these, eight, Avon, Freeport ( Conesus ), Geneseo, Groveland, Lima, Livonia, Sparta and Springwater, embracing about two-thirds of the territory and a like share of the population, were taken from Ontario ; and four, Caledonia, Leicester, Mount Morris and York, embracing the remaining third of the area and population, were taken from Genesee. In February, 1822, the north-west part of the town of Dansville, in Steuben county, was annexed to Sparta. In March, 1825, Freeport was changed in name to Bowersville, and in April of the same year the latter was changed to Conesus, which it still retains. In May, 1846, the towns of Nunda and Portage were added from Alle- gany ; and in March, 1857, Ossian was annexed from the same county. In February, 1846, Sparta was divided, and three towns, Sparta, West Sparta and North Dansville, erected therefrom.
The county originated in the conviction that such a change would essentially forward the administration of justice, and otherwise promote the convenience of the body of the people. The boundaries of the coun-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
ties of Ontario and Genesee, at the time of the division, embraced an area of not less than thirty-seven hun- dred square miles, an extent of country nearly three times as great as the whole state of Rhode Island. The same territory now forms the counties of Ontario, Genesee, Monroe, Livingston, Yates, Orleans, Wyo- ming, and part of Wayne. Nor were the two old counties unimportant in point of population or wealth. One hundred and sixty thousand souls, or more than a tenth of the whole population of the State at that time, had already made their homes there, and immigration was daily adding to their numbers ; while the valuation of their real and personal estate was fifteen and one-half millions of dollars, or one- seventieth of the aggregate valuation of the common- wealth.
The movement for division was sharply contested from the outset, for, though the active 'opposition to the measure was in a minority, it was a minority of no little strength. Favoring division, however, was a party of more than equal zeal, who appealed to the daily experience of the pioneers, and cited the bene- fits that had resulted from sub-dividing the original counties. Indeed, there were those among the popu- lation, men by no means venerable in years, who could remember all the subdivisions that had occurred. The original counties of the province of New York were formed, as it will be remembered, in 1683, and for nearly a century the old county of Albany embraced all the vast territory of the present State, lying north of Ulster county and west of the Hudson river, including, of course, the whole of the Genesee country. But the progress of settlement at length broke in on those long established boundaries, and in 1772, Tryon county, named after one of the British governors, was taken from Albany. It included all
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of the then province of New York lying west of Scho- harie creek. In 1784, Tryon was changed in name to Montgomery, in honor of the heroic general who fell at Quebec. Montgomery had five subdivisions, one of which, Kingsland, covered most of the western settle- ments. Ontario was taken from Montgomery in 1789, and included the whole area to which the pre-emptive right had been ceded to Massachusetts, and most of which, being afterward sold by that State to Phelps and Gorham, subsequently passed into the possession of the Holland Land Company and the Pultney estate. Hence Ontario county, when organized, covered the whole territory embraced within the bounds of the State west of the pre-emptive line,* and which now forms twelve counties and part of a thirteenth.+ Thus at successive periods, as will be observed, the county of Livingston has been a part of Albany, Tryon, Montgomery, Ontario and Genesee, and portions of it of Steuben and Allegany counties.
The large territory of the two counties of Ontario and Genesee, imposed unequal burthens on the towns. The more distant ones were put to an undue share of
* The pre-emptive line is situated a mile east of Geneva.
+ The territory then forming Ontario county was commonly known as the "Genesee Country," although that title was occasionally applied. From Ontario have been formed the following counties: Steuben, ( 1796 ); Gene- see, (1802); Allegany (1806); Cattaraugus, (1808 ); Chautauqua, (1808 ); Niagara, (1808); Erie, (1821); Monroe, (1821); Livingston, (1821); Yates, (1823); Orleans, (1824); Wyoming, ( 1841) ; Wayne, in part, (1823); in all, thirteen counties, excepting a part of one. Oliver Phelps was appointed first judge, on the organization of the county in 1789, and General Vincent Matthews was the first lawyer admitted in the court which then held juris- diction over that vast region. The Genesee river became the boundary line betwen Ontario and Genesee on the erection of the latter county, and so continued until the erection of Monroe and Livingston counties. The ground now covered by the city of Rochester, lying on both sides of the river, was then divided between two counties until the erection of Monroe .- Albany Argus.
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expense and loss of time in the transaction of busi- ness at the respective county seats. The rapid growth of the Genesee country, then regarded as next to incredible, rendered frequent transfers of land neces- sary, and a more ready access to the county records became each day a matter of greater moment. Litiga- tion, of which all new countries have their full share, compelled the frequent attendance of jurors and wit- nesses, as well as suitors. These were drawn from their distant fields and workshops and compelled to submit to the tedious delays attending over-crowded courts, at serious cost of time and money.
We of this age of turnpikes and railroads, of daily mails and proximity to records of land titles, and especially of adequate court facilities, are little likely to realize the extent of the evils experienced half a century ago. Then highways newly laid out and indifferent at best, were next to impassible in seasons of mud and ruts ;* the temporary bridges, ( and indeed, there were few others,) were often carried away by floods, while the snows frequently laid an embargo on winter travel. Instead of forty-three post- offices within the bounds of this county, there were then but ten. The mails, infrequent, for even Avon boasted of but three a week, and transported princi- pally in sulkies and on horseback, were tardy and irregular. Where at present a business visit to the county seat is the work of a single day, then, from portions of the old counties, it was the labor of three or four days. Now, as the population has become measurably fixed and suitably provided with courts,
* Col. Lyman says that he once had a team gone three months to Albany, and at one place, the teamster said, he did his best to get on for three days, staying three nights at the same place. "Indeed, between Canandaigua and Geneva I have seen forty horses to one heavy wagon, who did their best but could not move it but a few rods at a pull."
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
the transaction of legal business is a matter of some certainty ; then, as court facilities did not keep pace with the fast increasing causes, business fell into arrears, and all was involved in uncertainty,-all save the certainty of heavy expenses and constant delays, and, further, as Canandaigua and Batavia, the shire- towns, were not the natural centres of business of the territory embraced within this county, the people were not attracted thither for trade, nor did the principal avenues of trafic always lead toward those towns, hence they were forced away from the points where they were in the habit of transacting business.
Although the subject of a division of the county had been much discussed, it was not until 1820 that it came formally before the legislature. At the session of that year the standing committee on the erection of towns and counties, in the Assembly, to whom a large number of petitions for the new county were referred, advised that since "the various interests should be better understood and the opinions of the inhabitants be more definitely expressed before the Legislature could act intelligently upon the subject, and as little injury could be produced thereby, that the question be postponed until a future session," adding, "we are sensible that some of the towns are at an incon- venient distance from the seat of justice, and have claims upon the Legislature for better accommoda- tions." To this the Assembly agreed.
Through the summer of 1820 the matter was much canvassed. Meetings were held and petitions were circulated by the multitude, increasing, it is said, "with fearful rapidity." In December, 1820, a notice appeared in the Moscow Advertiser, and also in the Albany Argus, stating that the subscribers, Charles Colt, William Finley, John Peirce, David Warner, and their associates, intended to apply to the Legisla-
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
ture at its next session for the erection of a new county, to comprise the towns subsequently erected into Livingston. The friends of the proposed county of Monroe were also moving.
The majority of the people along the river, and those residing in towns contiguous to it, favored this division, while the northern part of Livonia, East Avon and Lima objected, and the more distant sec- tions vehemently opposed any change. A remon- strance from Le Roy, Batavia, and the western parts of Genesee, signed by six hundred and fifty persons, opposed division on the ground that "no county ought to be erected composed of territory lying on both sides of the Genesee river, as it would subject half the inhabitants to great inconvenience and expense ; and that the division would only promote the interests of a few lawyers, merchants and tavern keepers residing at the new county seats." Three hundred remon- strants, inhabitants of Canandaigua, Gorham and Naples, objected to any division of Ontario county, alleging that the "arguments advanced by the advo- cates of the several petitions, being, in our opinion, alike fanciful and fallacious, it is equal matter of sur- prise that there should be one as that there are seven applications for new counties," as was really the case. Division, they held, would destroy the symmetry of the old county and uselessly multiply offices and ex- penses. "At present," say they, "county charges fall lightly on individuals, and the times, financially, are unpropitious." More than this, they insisted that the effects of the Erie canal were "yet to be expe- rienced, and the results of this great work might easily render a division unwise." They also urged that the extensive range from which to select men of integrity and talents, which division would circum- scribe, secured able men on the bench, in the legisla-
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ture and for other public stations. This argument was most pertinent just then for John C. Spencer, the distinguished statesman, and Myron Holly, scarcely less honored, as well as other men of no little note, were at that time members of the Assembly from that county, or occupying other places of trust.
The period was one of great pecuniary distress. The war of 1812, but five years closed, had caused a suspension of the banks and completely deranged the business of the country. The debt it had created, together with the unpaid liabilities of the Revolution, the debt contracted for the purchase of Louisiana, and other items of international obligations, brought the public debt up to over ninety millions of dollars, a sum then deemed so formidable as to raise a doubt of the nation's ability to pay it. At the same time " the whole paper system, after a vast expansion, suddenly collapsed, spreading desolation over the land, and carrying ruin to debtors. The years 1819 and '20 were a period of gloom and agony. No money, either gold or silver ; no paper convertible into specie ; no measure or standard of value left remaining. The local banks (all but those of New England), after a brief resumption of specie payments again sunk into a state of suspension." "No price for property o. produce. No sales but those of the Sheriff and the Marshal. No purchasers at execution sales. No sale for the product of the farm-no sound of the hammer, but that of the auctioneer, knocking down prop- erty. Stop laws-property laws-replevin laws- stay laws-loan office laws-the intervention of the legislature between the creditor and the debtor ; this was the business of legislation in three fourths of the States of the Union-of all south and west of New England. No medium of exchange but depreciated paper ; no change even, but little bits
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
of foul paper, marked so many cents, and signed by some tradesman, barber or innkeeper ; exchanges deranged to the extent of fifty or one hundred per cent. Distress, the universal cry of the people : Relief, the universal demand thundered at the doors of all legislatures, state and federal."*
The people in this section, mainly engaged in agri- culture, and still largely in debt for their farms, expe- rienced the full weight of these evils. Their lands, as yet but partially cleared, were but measurably pro- ductive, and as they had been contracted for in more favorable times at prices ranging from five to ten dol- lars an acre, the large arrearages of purchase money, now excessive, were bearing heavily, indeed ruinously, upon purchasers. Hence, in many instances they were driven to the alternative of obtaining a reduction or of giving up their " betterments," as their improve- ments were called, and commencing anew. In Cone- sus, a committee consisting of Elder Hudson and Ruel Blake, were sent, with this object in view, to confer with the agents of the Pultney estate of whom the lands in that town were principally obtained. They were met, in proper spirit, by Robert Throup, the agent of that great property, and such was the influ- ence of these good men and the wisdom of the agent that the contract price on many lots was reduced one- half, while at the same time the price of grain in pay- ment of obligations was increased by the latter.
A few prices of those times will serve to give an idea of the prevailing market rates. Wheat, deliv- ered at what is now Littleville, was sold at thirty-one cents a bushel to pay taxes. Oats were worth less than a shilling a bushel, and butter six cents a pound. Instead of trading by the use of money, the people
* Benton's "Thirty Years in the United States Senate "
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
were obliged to resort to barter. Eight bushels of wheat would buy but a barrel of salt or a pair of cow- hide boots, while under this mode of exchange, a good cow was valued at ten dollars, a yoke of working oxen at thirty dollars, a horse fifty, pork two dollars the hundred, while Indian corn seems to have had no market value whatever. And yet the people were clamorous for a new county, although it involved a large expense for the erection of county buildings and the salaries of officers. That such, under the cir- cumstances, was their desire, is sufficient proof of the necessity of the measure.
The advocates of division were met by an opposition but little inferior to themselves in earnestness, which did not stop with remonstrating, but sought to remove the causes of complaint. Every facility was to be afforded by courts and county clerks. An instance may be given in the action of Judge Howell of Onta- rio county, then recently appointed, who opened his first term by sunrise and continued the sessions day after day, until late in the night, giving scarcely time for meals or sleep. "He run his court by steam." The calendar was exhausted ; it could not be other- wise. The people of Canandaigua were in raptures. They boasted that a week's term was sufficient to dis- pose of all business before the court, and insisted that the evils complained of were but temporary. The remedy, however, came too late. The people were determined to have a new county, and the only ques- tion that now remained was as to the manner of divis- ion. Here differences of opinion prevailed. Three plans, zealously urged by their respective friends, were proposed.
The first was the Avon or "long county " project, designed to embrace in one substantially both Monroe and Livingston, with the county seat at Avon. Its
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friends are represented in the petition deposited in the State Library, by eight hundred and fifty names, mainly from Avon, Caledonia and York.
A second plan, strongly urged from the south, pro- posed two counties, omiting from the southerly one the towns of Sparta, Ossian, Nunda and Portage, giving the whole of Caledonia to Monroe, and embrac- ing Castile, Perry and Covington on the south. This would have brought the then thriving village Moscow at the centre, with the avowed object of making that the county seat. A prominent citizen of Moscow was sent to Albany for the purpose of urging this view upon the Legislature.
The third and successful plan was to form the two counties, Monroe and Livingston, from territory depending chiefly upon the river for a market, and to make Rochester, then a small village, one of the county seats ; and a majority of those endorsing this plan favored Geneseo as the other. The friends of this mode of division were represented at Albany by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and Judge Carroll, who, as well as their constituents, acted in harmony throughout.
The subject was now transferred to Albany. The numerous petitions and the remonstrances were refer- red, on Friday, the 26th of January, 1821, to a select committee of the Senate, of which Senator Charles E. Dudley, a name now and for all time to be associated with the progress of astronomic science, was chair- man. In due time the committee reported "that the convenience and interest of the inhabitants of those portions of the counties of Ontario and Genesee included in the application, will be much advanced by the erection of a new county." Leave being given, Mr. Dudley brought in a bill entitled " An act to erect a new county by the name of Livingston, out of parts
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
of the counties of Ontario and Genesee, and for other purposes," and it was read twice by unanimous con- sent. On the third of February the bill was examined in committee of the whole, Senator Bouck, at a later day Governor, in the chair. It passed the Senate two days afterward, and on the 21st the Assembly concur- red without opposition. The bill then went to the Council of Revision, a body wisely designed as a protection against hasty and unadvised legislation, and unwisely abolished before the following session by a change in the constitution. On the 23d of Feb- ruary, 1821, the Council, composed of the Governor, the Chancellor and two judges of the Supreme Court, "resolved that it does not appear improper to the Council that this bill should become a law of the State." To this, in the volume of original laws deposited in the State Department, is affixed the sig- nature of Governor De Witt Clinton. It stands as chapter fifty-eight of the laws of that year, and imme- diately preceeding it is the act erecting the county of Monroe.
The county was appropriately named in honor of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, the most useful as he was the most conspicuous of the early friends of agriculture in this country. Eminent as a jurist and a statesman, a signer of the Declaration of Independ- ence, the devoted friend and patron of Robert Fulton, a man who faithfully loved and served his country in its period of supreme peril, he was, in a word, a type of that best product of the human race, a patriot statesman of the Revolutionary period.
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